who is in trumps new army?

fooferdoggie said:
Crap well we now know some that are in his army and it is real.
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On the upside, they are so dumb, most of their casualties were self inflicted: I reckon if they had been locked in the Capitol long enough, they would all have found a way to hurt themselves. And they are also great at posting confessions on social media, so there's that too.
 
lizkat said:
No one should think Trump's support is limited to down-at-heels loners...

www.inquirer.com

An insurrection of upper-middle class white people | Will Bunch

They flew from their affluent suburbs to the U.S. Capitol, ready to die for the cause of white privilege
www.inquirer.com www.inquirer.com
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Excellent and thought provoking piece, and I'm largely in agreement with it.

To add to that list of army officers, lawyers, and others, today's Guardian reports that an American Olympic swimmer - a gold medallist - Klete Keller, was also among those Warriors who attacked the Capitol.

To race, (and social class) I'd also add gender; white male privilege feels under siege on a number of different fronts.
 
Scepticalscribe said:
Excellent and thought provoking piece, and I'm largely in agreement with it.

To add to that list of army officers, lawyers, and others, today's Guardian reports that an American Olympic swimmer - a gold medallist - Klete Keller, was also among those Warriors who attacked the Capitol.

To race, (and social class) I'd also add gender; white male privilege feels under siege on a number of different fronts.
Click to expand...


One could say that it's not atypical for the well heeled to end up on the side of a fascist government. Adherents are usually part of oligarchies or supportive of them and opposed to agrarian reform, etc (El Salvador, Honduras, Cuba) but the Trump loyalty among the die-hard base seems much more like a personality cult than anything else in the end, not least because its adherents are not of a single socioeconomic class.

Interesting that Trump has played from a pseudo-populist script: it's often true that the leaders of rebels against a fascist government may attract a cult-like personal level of devotion, at least until after victory, and then comes the disappointment phase if the rebel leader is corrupt and starts backing the trucks up to the treasury.

But in the case of Trump, there's a strong religious zealotry component among some of his middle class supporters (the Phila detective was tweeting accusations of sin against Pence) and a cult-like attachment to him amongst some suburban supporters of a sort that seems to transcend appreciation of the GOP's tax-cut, de-reg policies.

Trump's political ascendance and crash is deservedly going to end up as strange, rich fodder for historians and psychiatrists as well because of its occurrence in the age of (dis)information.

I'm alarmed at the likelihood that Trump's rise and fall becomes at once a playbook and cautionary tale for people smarter and a little less psychologically or neurologically impaired, dependent, malleable. We might well have ended up with a "president for life" --and some like minded successors-- if Trump hadn't played into the hands of so many people with their own agendas, including plans and preparations for details of insurrection. We could find ourselves in that situation again, unless we now find and make examples of whoever had anything to do with the attack on both a sitting government's line of succession and an incoming, legitimately elected administration.

Some of the foot soldiers who showed up in DC at Trump's exhortations, whether loners or party animals from wealthy enclaves, seemed to believe after his final incitement to go down to the Capitol that they were going to participate in his coronation on live TV a week ago.

It becomes ever more clear now that some other "followers" in the crowd had different and more deadly ideas. What's not really clear yet is how many of those guys were recruited not by Trump himself but by people in high (but not necessarily high profile) places in his government, figuring to cash in on not only the gullibility of others of his followers but on the many blind sides of a man who thought he was king of the world.
 
theSeb said:
I've read that Klete hit hard times and, at one stage a few years ago, was homeless and living in his vehicle. So it's understandable that he was attracted to a movement that told people everything wrong in their lives was not their fault. Understandable but not excusable.

Here it is.

www.buzzfeednews.com

An Ex-Olympian Who Wore His Team USA Jacket At The Capitol Riot Has Been Charged

Klete Keller, an Olympic gold medalist, now faces three federal charges.
www.buzzfeednews.com www.buzzfeednews.com

"
In 2018, Keller revealed he'd been homeless for months, living out of his car after losing his job and his marriage breaking down.

"

Looking a bit further... I found this from 2018

Olympic gold to homeless: Why you should never give up with Klete Keller

The swimmer won gold in 2004 with Michael Phelps and just a few years later he was jobless and living in his car. Klete Keller has experienced the highs of beating Olympic swimming legends like Ian Thorpe but, after his winning career was finished, he sunk into a deep depression. Keller lost...
www.olympicchannel.com www.olympicchannel.com

Seems like there was more to this 2018 story and he probably found MAGA. I've not bothered to listen to the podcast. I don't think we can consider him as being part of the demographic that the inquirer mentions. Keller's story is a cautionary tale though in its own right.
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Well - and, again, this is a European perspective - but we (in western Europe, the old "east" was different), - unlike the US - rarely have so many Olympic gold medallists that we do not regard them as heroes.

They are generally well known, widely recognised, and much admired, and, if one of them turned up in such company it would be an explosive news story.

And no, irrespective of whether you are depressed, divorced or homelsss (as a former Olympic gold medallist), you still choose - you have made that choice - to show up on Capitol Hill in such company.
 
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Renzatic said:
Considering how religious these people tend to be, it's amazing how slow on the uptake they are when it comes to receiving God's direct messages.
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That's because their leaders are too busy counting their fricken Bitcoin donations.

File under FOLLOW THE MONEY (if you can).

news.yahoo.com

Exclusive: Large bitcoin payments to right-wing activists a month before Capitol riot linked to foreign account

U.S. law enforcement is investigating whether a bitcoin transfer to right-wing organizations and personalities was linked to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
news.yahoo.com news.yahoo.com
 
theSeb said:
Organic food lover, basement dweller, genius

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1350122796488290309/
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Yah that guy is a nice exemplar of a prized low to mid-level product of ideological efforts of some of the so-called "religious right", who are about putting followers of themselves into high profile in every category of American life, from the government (heh, or the anti-government) down through business, education, entertainment and media, to the family.

(see C. Peter Wagner's 2008 book Dominion: How Kingdom Action Can Change the World for an example of one of the dominionist approaches to putting not only politics into the pulpit but a flavor of Christian nationalism pulpit into every corner of life on earth).​

Celebrities are useful to conservative Christian ideologues even if drawing negative press for their politics. That just gives the leadership a chance to redirect the attack as an attack on freedom of religion in America... even when the attention of the press was focused on the political aspects of the celebrity's behavior. Notable example there was the blow up over the revealed political stance of baseball icon Mariano Rivera.

As for "organic foods"... let's not imagine that those are solely the province of lefties on communal farms or the little dairy farms that have long since gone to raising exotic greens for NYC restaurants. Some huge agribusiness outfits are major contributors and personal supporters of right wing ideologues in government who are in turn supporters of the eradication of walls between church and state. For instance, the Taylor clan including the head of Taylor Farms, the salad greens behemoth in California.

Another big right wing donor, Frank VanderSloot, owns the natural products firm Melaleuca (Idaho, Tennessee), an outfit that operates with representatives pitching products as direct sellers but also encouraging buyers to become representatives themselves, so one of those companies that occasionally gets sued by states alleging pyramid schemes. He occasionally donates to Dems in local or state races but he is primarily a ferocious supporter of conservative social views and puts his money where his ideas can be nurtured, e.g. Christian-operated charter schools.
 
theSeb said:
I am not ignorant of that, but merely pointing out the audaciousness of glaring entitlement in refusing to eat in jail until you are served organic food after being arrested.
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FTFY.

Now, the fact that he DID get fucking organic food in prison isn't only a horrific display of white privilege, but also tells us that he's not wrong about feeling entitled. He feels entitled because his entitlement brings shit to his table both literally and figuratively.
 

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